Zabbix 7.0 custom widgets game is on! The wonderful team at initMAX gave me access to Pro versions of their new Zabbix 7.0 widgets, so of course I'm now testing them in my own style. The first widget I got my hands on is Message of the Day.
Wouldn't it be great if your Zabbix user interface could show a simple reminder, announcement, or any other info that your users simply should not miss? Now, thanks to initMAX, that's possible in Zabbix 7.0, and is very simple to do.
The module also has its free version, but it comes with few limitations -- those are listed behind the link above.
Installation
I'm not going to repeat the very well written instructions that you can find from the link above. In a nutshell, it's the usual stuff:
- copy the files under your Zabbix installation modules directory
- in case of this module also make sure your web server can write to one particular directory
- go to Zabbix Administration --> General --> Modules,
- click on Scan directory
- enable new module
- done!
Using the module
The first new thing you will notice after installing the module is that there's a new menu option for you to choose from under Administration.
Clicking on that, and then clicking on Create new Message of the Day button, I'll get to this menu.
After clicking on Add, I have the new message visible on top of my Zabbix.
Further right, the message dialog also shows you the date range for the current notification.
Give it some colour
But wait, if the aliens were to show up here in peace, wouldn't the red be a scary warning colour? Let's use the colour picker and give this message a more calming green colour.
Make it repeat repeat repeat
Additionally, if the aliens would not only show up once, but would repeat their visit, there's a convenient option for them to make the message a repeating event.
Schedule your notifications
If a message of the day banner would be helpful for you regularly and in predictable manner, you can also schedule more than one message in the admin interface. Only one of them can be shown at once, at least for now, but this can be handy if you for example know about an upcoming maintenance and want to make sure you won't forget to add the message whenever it's time.
How does this module work?
Popping the hood, looks like the module is very lightweight and simple. It's not using database at all; instead it is writing into its own working directory, and all the data is stored in a JSON file.
[
{
"1": {
"name": "Greetings, Earthling!",
"active_since": 1718133300,
"active_since_color": "7CB342",
"active_till": 1718478900,
"repeat": 0,
"message": "Greetings, Earthling! We come in peace. We figured out that the best way to reach intelligent life on your planet would be through Zabbix 7.0 new Message of the Day widget.",
"id": "1"
},
"2": {
"name": "Don't forget the milk",
"active_since": 1718652660,
"active_since_color": "E45959",
"active_till": 1718911860,
"repeat": 0,
"message": "We're almost out of milk, you need to go buy more soon.",
"id": 2
}
}
]
This is handy, and of course makes it easy to automate the contents of the messages, even though the module won't have any API that I know of. Just modify the JSON file and you're done.
Ideas how to use this module
Even though the module is simple, I can imagine several use cases for it.
- All kinds of maintenance notifications
- Automated messages requiring attention RIGHT NOW: "Electricity died, UPS running out of juice soon"
- In smaller environments, a very simple handover from one on-call person to next
- Generative AI summarising something for you
Thanks, initMAX! Great to see that you are developing new Zabbix modules, and I know that you have more cool modules in the pipeline, many of which can be found from the initMAX public repository.
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